Government must come clean about radioactivity and treatment of nuclear of waste
There is a public meeting being held in Alice Springs tonight to discuss the national nuclear waste dump proposal and shortlisting of the site near Alice Springs. http://www.ntnews.com.au/news/centralian-advocate/alice-group-to-oppose-date-farm-as-nuke-dump-site-at-public-meeting/story-fnk4wgm8-1227633870645
The closest neighbours of one of the shortlisted sites for a nuclear waste repository want the federal government to explain the classification and treatment of nuclear waste returning to Australia for storage.The request follows a report by Greenpeace that claimed French authorities have classified a shipment of reprocessed Australian nuclear waste arriving at Port Kembla this weekend as high level waste, France’s highest nuclear waste classification.
The environment organisation’s report said that the waste, which Australia classifies as medium level, still contains highly radioactive plutonium even after reprocessing in France.
Robert LeRossignol, whose family runs tourism, horticulture and cattle businesses on Oak Valley outstation, said residents of remote Aboriginal communities near the site had a right to know how radioactive the waste is and what the difference in classification systems means for its treatment.
“France is a country with many decades of experience with nuclear waste. We want to understand why French authorities consider what our government calls medium level waste to be high level waste,” said Mr LeRossignol. “Does it mean that the waste would be treated more carefully if it was stored in France than it will be treated here?”
Mr LeRossignol and his family plan to attend consultation meetings organised by the Central Land Council so they can ask government representatives about the exact nature of the waste.
“We don’t know what it’s going to do. It’s very hard to understand,” he said. “It’s not too bad for us that went to school but a lot of the Aboriginal people don’t know what it is, what it might do to them.”
“We want the government to be straight with us about how dangerous this shipment of waste is and how much of it could end up just a few kilometers from our olive groves,” he said.
Oak Valley, 13 km from the proposed site, is one of three outstations on the Mpwelarre [pronounced M’BWA-lara] Aboriginal Land Trust. The closest access route to the proposed site passes the outstation.
Mr LeRossignol was alarmed by the claims the Greenpeace report made about the safety record of the foreign ship used by Australia to bring its nuclear waste home.
“The more you move radioactive waste around, the greater the chance of an accident. If it’s true that the government has shipped this waste around the world on the cheap imagine what could happen on the dangerous dirt roads around here,” he said.
“Under Oak Valley we have two major aquifers (the Mereenie and Pacoota) that are part of the vast Amadeus Basin, so if any contamination gets into one of those, what’s it going to affect, how many lives?”The CLC has invited government representatives to a meeting at Titjikala (35 km from the shortlisted site) on 14 December, followed by a meeting on 15 December at Ltyentye Apurte (Santa Theresa, 40 km from the site) to ensure residents can have an opportunity for informed input into the consultation process that ends next March.
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